ABSTRACT
Another relation between problems that has received much attention in examining transfer is what most researchers refer to as Isomorphic problems. Isomorphic problems have different story contexts but share a common solution. A practical issue is how different do the story contexts have to be in order to classify two problems as Isomorphic rather than as Equivalent. I consider the story context of algebra word problems to be different if the two problems fall into different categories in the taxonomies (Hinsley, Hayes, & Simon, 1977; Mayer, 1981) that were discussed in the previous chapter. For example, the Isomorphic problem in Table 7.1 would be classified as a motion problem in Mayer’s (1981) taxonomy, although it can be solved the same way as the example. This chapter examines transfer to Isomorphic problems.
